Gelato Network Integration for Smart Contract Automation

Blockchain cannot run scheduled functions on its own — this is one of the most common problems we encounter. When a smart contract needs to rebalance a pool every 24 hours, distribute staking rewards, or liquidate positions, someone must initiate the transaction externally. We use Gelato Network — a decentralized network of bots (executors) that monitor conditions and send transactions automatically. Our experience includes over 50 Gelato integrations, and we are ready to take your project turnkey.

What tasks does smart contract automation solve?

Typical scenarios: liquidation of underwater positions in lending protocols, rebalancing AMM pools, distributing staking rewards, syncing cross-chain bridges. All these require an external trigger, and Gelato provides a working solution without your own infrastructure. Over 1000 automatic transactions per day is a typical load for our projects.

Why Gelato instead of a custom keeper?

A custom keeper bot requires a VPS, monitoring, and redundancy — hours of DevOps work. Gelato provides a distributed network with execution guarantees and built-in monitoring via Tenderly. For tasks with frequency up to once an hour, Gelato is more cost-effective and simpler. Comparison with Chainlink Automation: Gelato is usually 20-30% cheaper on medium volumes, and fee savings can reach 35%.

What operational modes does Gelato offer?

Gelato Automate (old approach, Ops). Create a task via UI or SDK, the executor calls the specified function on a schedule or condition. Payment in ETH from the contract balance or in GELATO token.

Web3 Functions (current standard). Off-chain JavaScript/TypeScript function that runs on a Gelato node, can make HTTP requests, read off-chain data, and return calldata for an on-chain transaction. This solves the problem when decision-making requires off-chain data — price on a CEX, result of an API request, data from The Graph.

Automate vs Web3 Functions

Gelato fee comparison

How to integrate Gelato in one day?

A basic integration via AutomateTaskCreator takes about 4-6 hours. Inheriting from the Gelato contract allows programmatic task creation.

import {AutomateTaskCreator} from "@gelatonetwork/automate-sdk/contracts/AutomateTaskCreator.sol";

contract MyVault is AutomateTaskCreator {
    bytes32 public rebalanceTaskId;

    constructor(address _automate, address _taskCreatorProxy)
        AutomateTaskCreator(_automate, _taskCreatorProxy) {}

    function startRebalancing() external onlyOwner {
        ModuleData memory moduleData = ModuleData({
            modules: new Module[](2),
            args: new bytes[](2)
        });

        moduleData.modules[0] = Module.TIME;
        moduleData.modules[1] = Module.PROXY;

        moduleData.args[0] = _timeModuleArg(block.timestamp, 1 days);
        moduleData.args[1] = _proxyModuleArg();

        rebalanceTaskId = _createTask(
            address(this),
            abi.encodeCall(this.rebalance, ()),
            moduleData,
            address(0)  // pay in ETH from contract
        );
    }

    function rebalance() external onlyDedicatedMsgSender {
        // rebalancing logic
    }
}

onlyDedicatedMsgSender is an important modifier: only Gelato can call this function, not an arbitrary address.

What is Gasless Relay and how to implement it?

Gelato Relay allows users to send transactions without ETH — Gelato pays the gas, and the contract compensates it in ERC-20 tokens via _transferRelayFee():

import {GelatoRelayContextERC2771} from "@gelatonetwork/relay-sdk/contracts/GelatoRelayContextERC2771.sol";

contract GaslessNFT is GelatoRelayContextERC2771 {
    function safeMint(address to) external onlyGelatoRelayERC2771 {
        _mint(to, tokenId++);
        _transferRelayFee(); // pay Gelato from contract balance
    }
}

ERC2771 part: the user signs a transaction off-chain, Gelato forwards it via a trusted forwarder, the contract sees the real _msgSender() through the ERC-2771 context.

How to use Web3 Functions for off-chain logic?

A TypeScript script runs on Gelato nodes and can:

import { Web3Function, Web3FunctionContext } from "@gelatonetwork/web3-functions-sdk";

Web3Function.onRun(async (context: Web3FunctionContext) => {
    const { multiChainProvider, secrets } = context;
    const provider = multiChainProvider.default();

    // Get data from external API
    const response = await fetch("https://api.coingecko.com/api/v3/simple/price?ids=ethereum&vs_currencies=usd");
    const { ethereum } = await response.json();

    if (ethereum.usd < 2000) {
        const contract = new ethers.Contract(VAULT_ADDRESS, VAULT_ABI, provider);
        const callData = contract.interface.encodeFunctionData("triggerEmergency", []);
        return { canExec: true, callData: [{ to: VAULT_ADDRESS, data: callData }] };
    }

    return { canExec: false, message: "Price above threshold" };
});

How much does automation on Gelato cost?

Gelato charges a fee on top of gas cost. For Automate: balance is topped up in ETH on the contract or in Gelato Treasury. For Relay: fee ~10% of gas cost. For Web3 Functions: additional computation fee. On high-load tasks (liquidations, arbitrage), Gelato competes with Chainlink Automation and custom keeper bots. For tasks with moderate frequency (once per hour to once per day), Gelato is optimal in terms of simplicity of integration and cost.

Our team has 7+ years of experience in blockchain development and has implemented 30+ projects with smart contract automation. We guarantee that the integration will be completed on time with full test coverage.

What is included in the work

• Task analysis: mode selection (Automate, Web3 Functions, Relay)
• Smart contract integration: writing modules, inheritance, configuration
• Testing on testnet (Sepolia, Mumbai, Arbitrum Goerli)
• Gas and code optimization
• Documentation and team training
• Support for 30 days after deployment

Timeframes and cost

Basic Automate integration with time-based task: from 1 day. Web3 Function with off-chain logic and Relay: from 2 to 3 days. Cost is calculated individually after clarifying task frequency and off-chain logic complexity. Contact us for a free project assessment — we will prepare an estimate within one day.

Smart Contract Development

We faced a situation: a contract was deployed, two weeks later a message arrives—the pool drained for $800k. Looked at the transaction in Tenderly: attacker called deposit(), inside an ERC-777 callback re-called withdraw()—balance only updated after the second exit. Classic reentrancy, but not via ETH transfer—through an ERC-777 hook. ReentrancyGuard was only on withdraw().

Such cases are not rare. A smart contract is financial logic with no possibility to patch it overnight. Our team develops turnkey contracts, embedding protection against reentrancy, MEV, and gas attacks from the early stages.

How We Develop Smart Contracts Turnkey

We start with business logic audit and stack selection. Solidity 0.8.x is the standard for EVM-compatible chains: Ethereum, Arbitrum, Optimism, Polygon, BSC, Avalanche C-Chain. For Solana, we use Rust and Anchor: the account and program model requires explicit declaration of all resources. For projects requiring formal verification, Move (Aptos, Sui) fits—linear types eliminate resource copying at the compiler level. Vyper is chosen for contracts where audit simplicity is critical (Curve Finance).

Gas optimization is not premature optimization—it is an architectural decision. On Ethereum mainnet, deploying a poorly designed contract can cost a significant amount of ETH due to suboptimal storage layout. Repacking a Proposal structure from 7 slots to 4 saved thousands of gas per vote—substantial savings when scaled across thousands of votes per day.

Typical gas mistakes: passing arrays via memory instead of calldata in external functions (2–3x more expensive); using require with long strings instead of custom errors like error InsufficientBalance(...). Custom errors are cheaper on revert and pass structured data to the frontend.

Why Smart Contract Audit Is Critical for Security

Audit is not a one-time check—it is a built-in development stage. We use three levels:

1. Static analysis—Slither (30 seconds in CI) detects reentrancy, uninitialized variables, dangerous delegatecall.
2. Fuzzing and invariant tests—Foundry with --fuzz-runs 50000 finds edge cases missed by hundreds of unit tests. Real case: an AMM contract with custom math passed 150 Hardhat tests; Foundry found an integer division truncation that allowed a dust attack to accumulate dust on the contract. Echidna checks invariants ("sum of all balances ≤ totalSupply").
3. Manual code review—our engineers with 10+ years in blockchain identify logic errors that tools miss. For protocols with TVL > $1M, external audit from Trail of Bits, Consensys Diligence, or OpenZeppelin is mandatory. Timeline: 2–4 weeks.

Any upgradeable protocol must have a timelock. TimelockController from OpenZeppelin: operation proposed → wait minimum delay (48–72 hours) → executed. Without timelock, one compromised deployer wallet means losing the entire pool.

What Upgrade Patterns Do We Choose?

Storage collision is the main danger of proxies. Implementation v2 must not add variables before existing ones. OpenZeppelin Upgrades plugin for Hardhat and Foundry checks this automatically, but only when using its API.

How to Protect a Contract from MEV and Front-Running

On Ethereum mainnet, transactions in the mempool are visible to all. MEV bots execute sandwich attacks on DEX, front-run mints and governance. Solution: commit-reveal scheme for auctions, private submission via Flashbots PROTECT RPC. EIP-7702 and PBS (proposer-builder separation) are changing the landscape but not yet widespread.

What Is the Development Process?

1. Analysis—functional specification, call diagram, edge case analysis. Without this, coding starts in vain.
2. Development—Solidity/Rust with tests in parallel. Test → code → refactoring. Use Foundry for fuzz and invariant tests.
3. Internal audit—Slither + Echidna + manual code review. Foundry invariant tests for protocol invariants.
4. External audit—for projects with real money. Timeline: 2–4 weeks.
5. Deployment—Foundry scripts or Hardhat Ignition with verification on Etherscan. Gnosis Safe for ownership transfer immediately after deployment.
6. Monitoring—Tenderly alerts, OpenZeppelin Defender, Forta Network.

What Is Included

• Architecture documentation and contract specification (NatSpec).
• Source code with repository and CI (Slither, Foundry, coverage).
• Deployed contract with verification on blockchain explorer.
• Audit results (internal and external upon request).
• Access to monitoring and management (Gnosis Safe).
• Code warranty: critical bug fixes within one month after deployment.
• Consultation on web integration (wagmi, RainbowKit).

Estimated Timelines

• ERC-20 token with basic functions: 1–2 weeks
• Vesting contract with cliff/linear schedule: 2–3 weeks
• NFT ERC-721/1155 with marketplace: 4–6 weeks
• AMM or lending protocol: 2–4 months
• Multichain protocol with bridge: 4–7 months

Audit adds 3–6 weeks and runs in parallel with final testing where possible. Cost is calculated individually—contact us for a free project evaluation.

Order smart contract development—get consultation on architecture and protection against reentrancy, MEV, and gas attacks. Want to discuss details? Write to us—we will select the optimal stack for your task.